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United States Patent | 5,742,674 |
Jain ,   et al. | April 21, 1998 |
A system and method are disclosed for providing an automatic call-back when a calling party encounters a ring-no-answer condition upon calling a called party. An exemplary system includes: a first originating switch node (OSN) coupled to a first originating telephone call location corresponding to a calling party and, a terminating switch node (TSN) coupled to a destination telephone call location corresponding to a called party; a database coupled to the TSN for storing the called party's times of calling activity; a processor coupled to the TSN and to the database for processing the times of calling activity to determine a best time to call (BTTC) the called party (wherein the BTTC comprises a best exact time and/or a window of time) and providing the TSN with the BTTC; a signaling network for routing the BTTC to the OSN; and an adjunct coupled to the OSN for receiving the calling party's automatic call-back request and initiating an automatic call back to the calling party at the BTTC the called party. Upon receiving the automatic call-back request, the adjunct provides the calling party with the BTTC. The adjunct also requests the calling party to enter a time at which the calling party is most likely to be available to receive an automatic call-back and, if the time entered in response to said request is the best exact time or, within the window of time, the adjunct initiates an automatic call-back to said calling party at the time entered.
Inventors: | Jain; Ajay K. (Holmdel, NJ); Sahni; Paramdeep S. (Marlboro, NJ) |
Assignee: | AT&T Corp. (Middletown, NJ) |
Appl. No.: | 577892 |
Filed: | December 22, 1995 |
Current U.S. Class: | 379/210.01; 379/111; 379/112.01; 379/133; 379/229; 379/230 |
Intern'l Class: | H04M 003/48; H04M 003/36 |
Field of Search: | 379/67,88,89,111,112,113,114,115,128,201,209,210,211,212,265,266,202,214,133,46 |
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